By Peter Fenn | Contributor May 9, 2016, at 5:00 p.m. USNews & World Report

Here is a lesson from the past when it comes to Republicans dealing with Donald Trump and the upcoming convention in Cleveland. It was the summer of 1968. The country was torn apart. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy had just been assassinated, the Vietnam War was raging and Lyndon Johnson had taken himself out of the race for president.

I was a wet-behind-the-ears college sophomore working in the re-election campaign of Sen. Frank Church of Idaho. A liberal Democrat who was an early opponent of the Vietnam War, elected in a conservative state, Church had a decision to make that summer. Should he attend the Democratic Convention in Chicago in August, knowing that chaos would be the order of the day? Or should he remain in Idaho and run his own campaign? In some ways, not an easy decision.

Church was the keynote speaker at the Democratic Convention in Los Angeles that nominated John F. Kennedy, eight years earlier. He led the Idaho delegation to the 1964 Democratic Convention in Atlantic City, four years before. He was a loyal Democrat who cared about his party and would later, in 1976, run for president himself.

But Idaho was a hotbed of George Wallace conservatives; the John Birch Society had attempted a recall movement against Church a year earlier. (Rather reminds me of the Tea Party actually!) When we traveled all across the vast state, we saw far too many bumper stickers that read: “America, Love it or Leave It!” Frank Church had opposed President Johnson on Vietnam but supported his Great Society programs and had been an ally of Hubert Humphrey on civil rights and many other issues.

But he saw clearly where the Chicago convention was headed, both inside and outside the convention hall. The last place Sen. Church wanted to be during the hot month of August was in Chicago, in the midst of that firestorm. So from Aug. 26-29, 1968, Frank Church was nowhere near the Windy City. Instead, he took a few days off the campaign trail and holed up with his family and a group of us in the mountains of Idaho.

In the end, he ran his own campaign and barnstormed across the state under the slogan: “Re-elect Senator Frank Church: As Independent as Idaho.” His courage taking on his own party and president actually worked to his advantage, and having convictions that he cared deeply about earned the respect of voters even if they were not always in total agreement with him. But the decision to skip Chicago, to stay out of the donnybrook that ensued, was a very wise move for Frank Church in 1968.

For those Republicans who oppose Donald Trump, who are deeply worried about his lack of knowledge, understanding and qualifications to lead this nation, my advice would be stand clear. Let him run his campaign, you run yours. Let him have his convention, don’t follow him into that quicksand. Go with your conscience, not with a go-along to get-along march to Cleveland. Donald Trump is not the answer to the nation’s problems, he is a symptom of them. A strong, vibrant, Republican Party and Donald Trump have very little in common. Cleveland will no doubt prove that.

Source: Republicans Opposed to Trump Should Skip the GOP Convention in Cleveland | US News Opinion

Donald Trump and the End of Civility

If the Republican Party accepts Trump’s candidacy, it’s rejecting the virtues of teamwork, common courtesy and civility.

A serious threat to our country.

By Peter FennMarch 3, 2016, at 1:25 p.m.+ More

For a decade we have seen article after article, study after study, comment after comment on the death of civility in our politics. Politicians, pundits and academics worried that gridlock and the paralysis of Washington was heavily due to the nastiness of the political culture and the vitriol inherent in today’s politics.

Well, as Donald Trump might say – you ain’t seen nothing yet!

My friend, Ira Shapiro, wrote a terrific book, “The Last Great Senate,” about the accomplishments of the civil and functional U. S. Senate that we were both privileged to be a part of a few decades ago. Whether it was the Panama Canal treaties, passage of environmental legislation or social security reform, Republicans and Democrats actually worked together, forged compromises and got the people’s business done.

But as Norm Ornstein and Thomas Mann chronicled in their book, “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks,” published in 2012, the rise of tea party extremists and hard-right ideologues has polarized and paralyzed our constitutional system of government.

[SEE: Editorial Cartoons on Donald Trump]

And now in 2016, we have Donald Trump, who would make Ornstein and Mann’s world of just a few years ago look like patty-cake. Trump, and many of his colleagues in this race who have followed his lead, has debased the dialogue and engaged in trash talk that would make a pro football player blush. It has truly spiraled out of control.

Facts and logical argument are cast to the wind like confetti; nasty statements about body parts are common and invective like “stupid,” “idiot,” “lightweight,” “choker,” “loser” are used by Trump in nearly every speech and press conference.

No one is writing about a return to civility so long as Trump has seized the stage, forcing a dialogue that has taken American politics even further down into the gutter. In fact, Trump has left many people who should be speaking out speechless instead. Now Republicans and conservative columnists are shaking their heads and wondering why the other candidates and Republican Party leadership have kept their heads in the sand for so long. A flood of pieces by the likes of David Brooks and George Will spell it out perfectly: talking about “the governing cancer” and Trump’s “demagogic cynicism and anti-constitutional authoritarianism.”

[SEE: Editorial Cartoons on the 2016 Presidential Elections]

But I fault those Republicans and conservative pundits who clearly should have been focusing on this transformation from a government that governed and legislators who legislated into a collection of talking heads whose constant desire is to be on gladiator-TV. Or to give a speech that incites a crowd. Many of them embraced the tea party and chose demagoguery over dialogue.

What has happened to words such as thoughtful, wise, substantive, open-minded and even educated, learned and knowledgeable to describe those in the arena of politics and government? Why are those not the standards we use to judge our leaders?

I am left with the enduring cover image from The New Yorker a number of weeks ago, showing a television set with Donald Trump raging and Presidents Washington, Lincoln, Kennedy and Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt looking on in horror.

[READ: Trump’s Southern Strategy Wins Him the South Carolina Primary]

This is no longer amusing nor something that should be passed off as entertainment. This is not “The Apprentice” or some reality television show. This is real.

If we allow a person like Donald Trump to capture the Republican Party, let alone the country, the price we will pay will be lasting, and the damage will be serious and permanent. This is so far from anything we have experienced; that it has no parallel in our history. He is not, as he says, building a new expanded Republican Party. This “movement” is based on fear and loathing, racism and prejudice, xenophobia and hatred. It is based on our basest instincts, not on our best instincts. It is destructive, not constructive.

With a Trump ascendancy, common courtesy and civility will be considered weaknesses and the politics of irrationalism and fear will triumph. That must not happen.

Super-Duper Tuesday

Why March 15 could be a bigger deal for the 2016 presidential race than Super Tuesday.

Two more weeks.

By Peter FennMarch 2, 2016, at 2:00 p.m.+ More

A few weeks ago, I began to map out the March Madness that is the race for the White House. There has been a lot of focus on yesterday’s March 1 Super Tuesday line up. On the Democratic side after all, 859 delegates were at stake, roughly 20 per cent of the total. Republicans had about 25 per cent at stake.

For both parties, things shook out more or less as expected: advantage Clinton and Trump. But, given the results, one can argue that the lead up to March 15 and that big day may be even more critical.

[SEE: Editorial Cartoons on the 2016 Presidential Elections]

For the Democrats, 11 states are up in the next two weeks with nearly 1,000 at stake, more than yesterday’s total. Three of these are caucuses – Maine, Nebraska and Kansas – and the rest are primaries. Michigan next week has 130 delegates, Florida has 214, Illinois has 156, Ohio has 143, North Carolina has 107 and Missouri has 71. As we know with the Democrats, there are no winner-take-all primaries and delegates are awarded proportionately.

For the Republicans, one can argue that the winner-take-all primaries of Florida and Ohio are now looming as critical to any effort to stop Donald Trump. Sen. Marco Rubio has to win Florida and Gov. John Kasich has to win Ohio. If Trump wins those states, plus does well in the other 13 contests, he will be well on his way to securing a majority of the delegates.

Clinton is piling up large delegate leads in states with very diverse populations, especially in the South. She stands to not only win Louisiana and Mississippi handily in the next couple of weeks but also could score big victories in Illinois (with a 43 percent non-white Democratic primary electorate), North Carolina (38 percent non-white), Florida (34 percent non-white), and possibly Michigan (28 percent non-white) and Ohio (24 percent non-white).

[READ: Tuesday Super Enough for Hillary Clinton in 2016, So She Turns to Trump]

Sen. Bernie Sanders can not win enough delegates by scoring victories in caucus states like Maine, Nebraska or Kansas. He must win the big states and Michigan is the first up on March 8. He has the money to stay in and compete but this is now about the math. He can’t continue to lose major delegate-rich states, especially by large margins.

So, the next two weeks and March 15 will be very important for Clinton’s march to 2,383 delegates and Trump’s effort to amass 1,237. Unless Sanders can show that he can win in a number of these big delegate-rich states, he will not be able to overtake Clinton, especially with her huge lead with the 712 super delegates. Also, Republicans’ efforts to stop Trump may rise or fall in the next two weeks.

There will be more to come, but we may be talking about the Super-sized Tuesday come March 15.

Source: March 15 Might Be the Real Super Tuesday for the 2016 Presidential Election – US News

Hillary’s Path Forward

The sky isn’t falling on Hillary Clinton’s campaign, but she needs to focus on distinguishing herself from the GOP and Bernie Sanders.

She has the solutions, just not the messaging.

By Peter FennFeb. 10, 2016, at 4:37 p.m.+ More–USNews & World Report

Don’t panic. Don’t overreact. Don’t lash out. And, most importantly, don’t listen to the sky-is-falling crowd. This will be a long slog, so deal with it. Lord knows, Hillary Clinton is used to long slogs. There are many things that the Clinton campaign should do mechanically, but I would suggest two big ones on the message front.

[SEE: Editorial Cartoons on Hillary Clinton]

First and foremost, go after the Republicans. The speech last night in New Hampshire was strong and tough and had the right tone. But this is about focusing this campaign on the Republicans’ overreach and where they want to take the country. Every debate and every speech and every question that Hillary gets should make the choice crystal clear. Who stands up for tax breaks for the wealthy and proposes flat taxes that screw the middle class? Who refuses to change our campaign finance system and favors secret money? Who will oppose a woman’s right to choose, even in the cases of rape and incest? Who opposes LGBT rights at every turn? Who prefers to carpet bomb, not producing coalitions? Who denies climate change and refuses to act on the global crisis? Who is against raising the minimum wage, even against the minimum wage? Who refuses to support equal pay for equal work? Who is against a path to citizenship for immigrants, and who demonizes Muslims at every turn?

I could go on and on, but the issue positions and rhetoric of the Republican candidates is not where the majority of the American people are, and they reject these extreme right-wing positions. Hillary should take them on, every day, every way. This campaign is about two very different futures for America, and the core of her message should be about making this clear to voters now and in the general election.

[READ: Hillary Clinton Has the Most Compelling Life Story in the 2016 Campaign]

Second, it is time for the campaign to show the clear differences between reality and fantasy with Bernie Sanders. This is not about idealism or revolution or just channeling anger. It isn’t even about real change. It is about a candidate who is extremely well-meaning and who has values that many of us can admire, but who is proposing ideas that are not only beyond vague and have zero chance of becoming law, but that are the wrong ideas for the country.

When we need to put in place the Affordable Care Act, we don’t need to focus on “Medicare for all.” When we need to fix the student loan problem and find ways to get more people ready and into an affordable college, we don’t need to propose a loosey-goosey free-college-for-all program. When we need to tighten rules on Wall Street, we don’t need to talk about going back to a bygone era that didn’t work anyway.

So far, the Clinton campaign has been reluctant to take Bernie Sanders on directly. They have been reluctant to pull in experts and third-party supporters who can provide cogent, clear arguments that highlight the problem between the rhetoric and the reality. But you can be sure that the Republicans would have no compunction to tear into Sanders.

[READ: Win One for the Revolution]

You don’t have to be Lee Atwater or Karl Rove to figure this one out – a high school sophomore could do it. Here is what the Republicans will say: Bernie Sanders is a committed and consistent socialist who wants to radically expand government in Washington, create new and vast federal programs in education and health care and increase regulation, thereby raising taxes so high that we resemble the socialist countries of Europe.

Fair or not, it will be tough to defend. I remember so well George McGovern’s $1,000-for-all plan in 1972 when he ran against Richard Nixon. It didn’t go over well. The result was the “Don’t Blame Me, I’m from Massachusetts” bumper sticker for the one state he carried.

The bottom line is that Hillary Clinton has proposals that actually solve the problems that Bernie is talking about in this campaign. But it is time to call him out on his when-pigs-fly plans that he has laid on the table, and let voters make the call.